If there is a culture change going on with the Maple Leafs, coach Randy Carlyle knows it’s far from complete.

Carlyle guided the Anaheim Ducks to a Stanley Cup in 2007. Six years later, his Leafs have won eight of their first 13 games.

Big difference.

“Just because we are three games over .500, I don’t think we should be waving any pompoms, or doing any jumping up and down,” Carlyle said after the Leafs practised at the MasterCard Centre on Wednesday in preparation for Thursday’s road game against Carolina Hurricanes.

“We are supposed to be 13-0. That is the way the game is played. That is pro sports. You want to be as strong as you can and get every point you possibly can. To make any great proclamations as to where we are, I think it is very foolhardy.”

Carlyle doesn’t want his Leafs, one of the youngest teams in the National Hockey League, to get ahead of themselves. For the most part, they have played solid hockey, and have met challenges head on.

This is a team that has had to do without Joffrey Lupul, who is weeks away from returning from a fractured arm, and with just two goals from Phil Kessel, though he has emerged as an above-average playmaker.

The latest test comes in the form of the absence of Matt Frattin, who requires some surgical cleaning of the left medial collateral ligament that he had repaired in surgery last June. Frattin quickly forgot about being cut in camp and had 10 points (seven goals and three assists) in 10 games. For the Leafs, only newcomer James van Riemsdyk, with eight goals, has found the back of the net more often than Frattin, who will miss at least a week, in this abbreviated season.

“He had an issue with his MCL that was corrected, it is something that has flared up and it is not something that the doctors feel is a long-term thing, but definitely have some concern,” Carlyle said. “He could probably play with it and we could look after it at the end of the year, but if he has any inkling from the outside here ... (we just want to) take care of these situations as quickly as possible. We thought it was the best decision. We think he can be playing before the end of the month.”

Good teams are able to fill holes and carry on. The Leafs have found a way with Lupul watching from the sideline. Jay McClement will take Frattin’s spot on a line with Nazem Kadri and Clarke MacArthur, but scoring from other sources would be nice with Frattin out. That means Kessel and more or less everyone else after van Riemsdyk.

If the Leafs weren’t starting to shed their old ways, weren’t becoming comfortable with the defensive stylings of Carlyle, they wouldn’t be riding a four-game winning streak into Raleigh.

There’s no doubt that a sea change is happening, but it’s just not clear to what extent.

The thinking was that then Carlyle took over from Ron Wilson last March, he could lay some groundwork in the final 18 games of the 2011-12 season.

That occurred, and now it’s about solidifying the foundation.

“His time coming in last year was a big help for our team, to see how he ran things, we got to see how he coached,” captain Dion Phaneuf said. “In that time, guys digested a lot. Coming into a short training camp, I think it helped us a lot this year for those 18 games and he was able to implement what he wanted to at that time. When we did not have time in training camp, I think that time was invaluable for us as players to know what he expected.”

Carlyle acknowledged that the lockout, in a sense, helped.

“We have tried to approach it from a workman-like attitude since the end of last season,” Carlyle said. “We had lots of opportunity to do an analysis of where we were, and we wanted to change some things that were going on, and we did that. To say there is a culture change, we have to live that, and we are in the baby steps of that.”

WING-DINGED

Nazem Kadri is going to have to get by without his right-hand man.

Of Matt Frattin’s seven goals this season, Kadri has assisted on five. But Frattin will be out for at least one week after a surgical procedure on his left knee is completed.

“There have not been too many times where I have been on the ice and he hasn’t,” Kadri said. “I think that’s been huge for our success, and it’s something that has developed in the past couple of years.

“Me and Fratty can talk about anything as well. It’s not like we are shy to draw up plays — ‘maybe you should have given me the puck, maybe you should not have.’ The communication factor is there and the comfort factor is there.”

Jay McClement will take Frattin’s spot on a line with Kadri, whose 11 points have him tied with Phil Kessel for the Leafs lead, and Clarke MacArthur.

“I’m comfortable playing with any of the guys in this room,” Kadri said.